Donald Trump has promised to roll back regulations and unleash an energy revolution in America — but economists have their doubts about the plan.

The Republican presidential candidate says he will boost America’s economic output, create millions of new jobs, and put coal miners back to work. But the windfalls Trump touts originate from a report commissioned by a nonprofit with ties to the energy industry and whose findings rely on a forecasting model that often overstates the benefits of increased drilling, according to economists who have researched the U.S. shale oil and gas revolution.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Immigration and trade have dominated much of the policy conversation this campaign season, but the next president will take office at a crucial time for the energy industry. America’s revolution in high-tech oil production has been sidetracked by — and has contributed to — a two-year crude price rout that has bankrupted dozens of domestic energy companies.

While outlining his economic blueprint last month, Trump said that lifting restrictions on oil and gas would increase GDP by more than $127 billion, add about 500,000 jobs, and increase wages by $30 billion each year over over the next seven years.

Those figures come from the Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit that advocates for a free-market approach to energy. It typically casts fossil fuels as the most economic form of energy generation, promotes research that says green energy jobs are unsustainable, and claims there is an “enormous volume of sensationalized, simplistic and often plain wrong information” on climate change.

Firstly, it’s impossible to overstate the benefits of drilling more economists…

Secondly, fossil fuels are the most economic form of energy generation; green energy jobs not just unsustainable, they are a boondoggle and a drain on our economy; and there absolutely is an “enormous volume of sensationalized, simplistic and often plain wrong information” on climate change. If this is the “economists” point of contention, they are wrong.

The IER report in question projects the economic benefits of opening up all Federal lands (apart from National Parks and other specifically protected lands) to oil, gas & coal leasing…

The IER study does not actually attribute the gains to a lifting of restrictions, as Trump indicated, but to opening all federal lands to oil, gas, and coal leasing. It is currently barred or temporarily blocked in some parts of the U.S. lower 48, the outer continental shelf, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge includes a barren stretch of coastal tundra known as ANWR-1002. ANWR-1002 is Prudhoe Bay’s next-door neighbor. Geologically speaking, it would almost be regarded as a “step-out” from Prudhoe Bay.

The USGS estimates the P-mean recoverable resource potential of ANWR-1002 assessment area to be in the neighborhood of 10 billion barrels of crude oil. Which means that the oil & gas industry would probably find about 40 billion barrels, if we were allowed to look.

At $45/bbl, 10 billion barrels of crude oil is worth $450,000,000,000… Nearly half-a-trillion dollars. The opening of ANWR-1002, all by itself, would generate a lot of economic activity and the Treasury would collect a lot of royalty and tax revenue. Sounds like a win-win. On top of that, the failure to open ANWR-1002 soon will eventually force the premature shutdown and dismantling of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).

A premature end to TAPS would strand about 30 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of natural gas under Alaska and its OCS (outer continental shelf).

• The Trans Alaska Pipeline System’s (TAPS) minimum flow rate of about 300,000 barrels of oil per day will be reached in 2025, absent new developments or reserves growth beyond the forecasted technically remaining reserves. An Alaska gas pipeline and gas sales from the Point Thomson field and the associated oil and condensate would provide another boost to oil production and extend the life ofTAPS for about one year to 2026. A shut down of TAPS would potentially strand about 1 billion barrels of oil reserves from the fields analyzed.

Page ix

• For the complete study interval from 2005 to 2050, the forecasts of economically recoverable oil and gas additions, including reserves growth in known fields, is 35 to 36 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of gas. These optimistic estimates assume continued high oil and gas prices, stable fiscal policies, and all areas open for exploration and development. For this optimistic scenario, the productive life of the Alaska North Slope would be extended well beyond 2050 and could potentially result in the need to refurbish TAPS and add capacity to the gas pipeline.

• The forecasts become increasingly pessimistic if the assumptions are not met as illustrated by the following scenarios.

1. If the ANWR 1002 area is removed from consideration, the estimated economically recoverable oil is 29 to 30 billion barrels of oil and 135 trillion cubic feet of gas.

2. Removal of ANWR 1002 and the Chukchi Sea OCS results in a further reduction to 19 to 20 billion barrels of oil and 85 trillion cubic feet of gas.

3. Removal of ANWR 1002, Chukchi Sea OCS, and the Beaufort Sea OCS results in a reduction to 15 to 16 billion barrels of oil and 65 trillion cubic feet of gas.

$1.7 trillion sounds like real money to me… And this is just for the Alaska North Slope and northern OCS regions.

The CBO estimates that the full opening of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and ANWR Area 1002 to exploration and production would quickly generate more than $35 billion per year in Federal revenue from lease bonuses and royalties…

On top of that, the BEA estimates that it would also generate more than $24 billion per year in Federal tax revenue…

That’s about $60 billion per year of government revenue… Just from taxes and royalty payments. So, the economic activity which generated those government revenues would have to be at least a bit larger.

If we add up the estimated undiscovered technically recoverable resource (UTRR) potential under the US and its OCS and the Green River Oil Shale, we come up with about 1.3 trillion barrels of oil. 76% of this is currently off limits to exploitation,

At $45/bbl, 974 billion barrels of crude oil (and high grade refinery stock) is worth $43.8 trillion dollars… Almost enough money to totally decarbonize US electricity generation. Even if it took 100 years to find, produce and sell that oil that still works out to $438 billion per year. $438 billion in gross revenue will drive an awful lot of economic activity.

So, what exactly, do the “economists” take issue with?

The IER report uses a method of forecasting called the input-output model, which is frequently used by consultants and government agencies to make projections about the effects of economic activity.

But a number of economists say that model is not well-suited to predicting how more drilling will produce windfalls in other sectors, and academics are skeptical of the method because the results, or outputs, rely so heavily on the assumptions, or inputs.

“This is not academic research and would never see the light of day in an academic journal. The pioneering research … from years ago is rarely employed any more by economists,” said Thomas Kinnaman, chair of the Economics Department at Bucknell University, who reviewed the IER report for CNBC.

Kinnaman said the technical assumptions used throughout the study are not “egregious,”

I wonder if Dr. Kinnaman knows that “egregious” used to mean the exact opposite of what it means today… Let’s assume he’s using the modern definition and IER’s technical assumptions aren’t wrong in any way than he can identify. So, what’s his beef?

but he noted that the paper makes no attempt to weigh the environmental and social costs of opening federal lands against the benefits.

Especially since her plan would cost a fortune because the only way to get that many panels installed is to artificially reduce the cost by imposing a massive government subsidy. Doesn’t sound like growth to me, except perhaps to China who is the leading supplier of solar panels feeding the green monster.

And will require, conservatively, the area equivalent to approximately half the state of Rhode Island. But that’s ok, the they will be built in the desert and we know that environmentalists don’t care about desert ecological systems (screw the desert tortoise).

The only economists whose opinion about drilling for oil, I would pay any attention to, are those employed by the oil industry; big oil if you will; really big oil if you must.
Not media or government economists.
Well forget that last one, that’s an oxymoron.
G

Solar is “unstoppable.” What happens to the build out when the investment and product tax credits (read subsidies) are close to not being renewed in Congress? The projects slow down and there is much gnashing of teeth and groaning about how Congress is “killing” renewables. All it is is the crony capitalists worried about the gravy trains leaving the station.

George:
I’m an economist by training. In my micro-econ and regulation classes, we would learn how to do the analysis to prove a regulation was necessary and have little cost or some gain; AND how to show it was a horridly costly and wasteful boondoggle.
Why?
To qoute the professor:
“You don’t know if you will get a job offer from goverment or a regulated industry, so you must be prepared for both”….
Absolutely true. So now you know why 2 economists can be exactly opposite in their conclusions. For economists, as for lawyers, look at the client or employer to know the result…

It’s simple. Issue an executive order making it mandatory that everyone, excluding children, install 2 solar panels. That’s over 500,000,000 solar panels right there. If they have nowhere to install solar panels allow them to contribute the cost of 2 solar panels to the government to fund solar panel farms in the desert which will power the grid and industry during the day. At night people will run their houses off their own stored power. Outlaw fossil fuels. Then there will be harmony, peace and understanding. Wisdom will rule the planets and love will drive the stars. Vulcan peace sign out.

Tom Halla
Yes – because the Australian, Canadian, and British politics matter.
As – much more – does the US politics (Or ‘Who is more disapproved of?’ – 2016).
Few to zero mentions of the Uzbekistan Presidential – well, election/soundings/coup/revolution/conclave or whatever.
Auto

“I am sorry the US election intrudes on this site, but it is unfortunately inevitable.”
The US election is about as relevant a topic on WUWT as anything else dealing with “climate change”. We are coming to the “fork in the road” on Climate Change policy, and the US election will determine which way we go.

I’m pretty much focused on the Chinese elections myself. Elections in the US don’t really happen, Canadians spend more time on hockey, Australians confuse elections with parties (or vice versa, who can really tell?), Chile is the only country in South America that actually has a clue, Africa is hopeless and the Indian subcontinent is still recovering from Queen Victoria.
So I want to know what China is going to do next, and what Chile is going to do about it 🙂

Unstoppable it may be but you do realize that the candidate has pledged to install the equivalent of 140 GW in four years? That’s roughly 5.5X the current installed capacity … in 4 years. I’m thinking that’s a tad bit unrealistic. I tried to figure out what the world’s production capacity for solar panels is and was generally unsuccessful since the production figures seem to be quoted in capacity rather than # of panels (probably because there are so many different sizes of panels), but, I suspect that the entire world does not have the production capacity to make 347,000 solar panels/day for 1460 days (which is an average and initially, even if she does get elected, that production/installation will not instantaneously occur day 1. Do we have enough trained installers to install 3437,000 solar panels/day (on average)? Where are they going to be installed? Her commercial wasn’t specific about where but it strongly implied residential rooftop installations were the target. I’m interested in an economic analysis of the feasibility of how many homes (and where) these will be installed on. It takes 10-12 panels to reach the typical 5KW (rated not actual) rooftop install, so if we install 500 million panels on rooftops that means that ~50 million homes will get these installs. I hope I’m one, I’d love to get a free install of solar panels. Last time I priced it locally installed it was ~$15K and if i wanted to add offline storage ala Mr Musk’s 7kw batteries that would cost $3500 for the unit, $5K install — another $8500. Interestingly enough the largest manufacturer/installer of solar panels is Solarcity (currently bleeding money for Mr Musk who just bought it). 500,000,000 government paid panel installs would certainly add the Solar City bottom line. Also interesting is that Solar City and Mr Musk are huge supporters of this particular candidate, having contributed substantial sums. Just a coincidence I’m sure.
I also was amused that the candidate named the US, China, & Germany as the three top ‘Clean energy superpowers. The same China that is currently the world leader in CO2 emissions (by a growing margin) and who is actually (as opposed to ‘pledged’ to) opening a coal fired power plant every week, 52 weeks a year and plans to continue to do so for at least a decade.

“Unstoppable it may be but you do realize that the candidate has pledged to install the equivalent of 140 GW in four years? That’s roughly 5.5X the current installed capacity … in 4 years. I’m thinking that’s a tad bit unrealistic. ”
Consider the source: Lying Hillary Clinton.
BTW, the next time you watch Hillary debate, know that *everything * she says is a lie. Everything. If her lips are moving, she is lying.

Right. A huge of number of solar panel installers will be needed. In practice, a majority of the promised “green jobs” would be as these glorified roofers. All those new graduates with their “free” college degrees will be sorely disappointed. The candidates economic and energy policies seem to boil down to:
Donald Trump – 4% economic growth, $2 gasoline
Hillary Clinton – 2% economic growth, $4 gasoline
It’s our choice.

347,000?
If the utility basic unit is 20 panels (I accept better information but they are installed as mulitpanel units) and it takes an hour to install a unit, for 160 panels per day, it would take 2170 installers roughly.
The problem is it is stupid.
The cheapest and best energy source is fossil fuels. They doesn’t use valuable resources like steel and rare earths to any extent.
It produces a lot of life giving CO2.
The only energy source that comes close is nuclear (less resources used), while it doesn’t produce life giving CO2 it is cleaner than fossil fuels and has a smaller footprint so it could be argued it is superior..
Renewable energy (solar/wind/hydro) has killed more people and animals than real energy and we have the graves to prove it (in most cases – some bodies haven’t been recovered).

So basically the political class is trying to turn fossil fuels into an exclusive source of energy for manufacturing solar panels… So if we were to turn into an all solar powered world, how much hexasulfur fluoride (the most potent ghg) would we be releasing annually into the atmosphere?
Is it plausible that in their blind attempt to mitigate CAGW that they end up triggering it?

And since each solar panel will not produce enough energy in it’s lifetime to produce another one to replace it, our civilization will grind to a halt within a decade of shutting down the conventional (coal, gas, nuclear) plants.

John writes: “How old school, george . . Short term memory is on the hillary ; )”
So, applying algebra, may we conclude that Hillary is on Fritz? On the Fritz? Fritz is on Hillary? There has to be a scandal in there somewhere…

That’s what happens to thought processes under advanced Parkinson’s Disease.
Sorry to all those whose family members and friends have so suffered, but when you’re that sick mentally and physically, you really ought not to imagine yourself qualified to serve as President of the USA.

More likely Hillary has post concussion syndrome and micro seizures from her brain clot induced damage. Do a web search on “Hillary seizures youtube” but be prepared to sort some trash from the decent videos.
IMHO, she has residual micro seizures from her concussion and brain injury, and they are working hard to keep it under control. I would love to know if the reputed diazapam autoinjector in some photos could be validated. It is for seizures.

“Those figures come from the Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit that advocates for a free-market approach to energy. It typically casts fossil fuels as the most economic form of energy generation, promotes research that says green energy jobs are unsustainable, and claims there is an “enormous volume of sensationalized, simplistic and often plain wrong information” on climate change.”
It sounds like the IER is right on the money with their analysis.

Well, CNBC is not quite as bad as MSNBC, but either could be considered a branch of the Hillary Rodham Clinton for President committee. It is much simpler to subsidise non-productive activities like wind and solar than invest in things that actually produce energy, at least according to academic economists.

Considering that oil is used as a weapon against the United States by unfriendly governments, moving to a position where that weapon is less effective is to our benefit. When it comes to the calculus of national survival, more energy independence for us is a net positive both militarily and economically.

“At $45/bbl, 974 billion barrels of crude oil (and high grade refinery stock) is worth $43.8 trillion dollars… Almost enough money to totally decarbonize US electricity generation. Even if it took 100 years to find, produce and sell that oil that still works out to $438 billion per year. $438 billion in gross revenue will drive an awful lot of economic activity.”
Yes, $438 billion per year *is* a significant economic boost. We are going to need a significant economic boost.
The U.S. is currently paying $478 billion per year in interest payments to its creditors, thanks to Obama and the Republican Congress spending like drunken sailors. An extra $438 billion per year from opening up oil and gas exploration would certainly be a big benefit.
An even bigger benefit would be to eliminate the national debt which eliminates these huge interest payments, which can then be spent to boost the domestic economy rather than making our creditor’s wallets fatter.
Opening up the oil and gas exploration and eliminating the national debt would add almost one TRILLION dollars to the U.S. economy.
The national debt is going to sink our ship if we don’t watch out.

Yup! Just remove most restrictions and have a few public discussions about how to go about it properly.
Congress sounds like a good place to do it !
Let the energy market have some agility to respond to demand and (gasp) let free enterprise work.

I joyfully volunteer to help them pack. Down here in Texas real-estate agents are already soliciting their listings. If they really want to leave this Republic, I would recommend Cuba. It is a socialist workers utopia and everything is free and everybody is happy, it is always spring time and they frolic naked in the meadows with the Unicorns and Pixies. (The image of Michael Moore “frolicking naked” is, ahh…..”distasteful”.) But…The damn fools have lied about everything else, unfortunately they are lying about this. Too bad.

This is hilarious. I love their caveat at the beginning, essentially that “this report is unbelievable because it was put together by a non-profit with ties to energy.” Well maybe they should have hired Bozo the clown, surely the revisionist nu-age pseudoscientists would believe them then.

The American people will have survival offered to them but will probably vote Clinton instead.
“Western” power, electricity, culture, technology, influence, wealth, going … going … gone
The global language in 100 years time will be a choice between
Mandarin, Russian, Persian, Korean, Arabic, Hindi, Portugese, Spanish, French

ptolemy2
September 7, 2016 at 10:01 am
The American people will have survival offered to them but will probably vote Clinton instead.

Don’t be so pessimistic, I voted for Brexit and sat up all night to watch the results come in. I couldn’t believe how long it took the BBC and establishment commentators to admit defeat.
Trump can, and will win. You have to realise that polls are distorted and misreported to make one think that his chances are hopeless so you don’t bother to vote. Have faith in a better tomorrow. Vote.
SteveT

Ptolemy
“The global language in 100 years time will be a choice between
Mandarin, Russian, Persian, Korean, Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish, French”
So – English.
FIFY
English is evolving – takes words, phrases, concepts from anywhere – even textish. Probably from most reasonably-widely-spoken languages anywhere. See Wikipedia [which I can edit, true] – “list of English words ” – a huge number of pages.
In Wikipedia, true . . . .
English is – from its origin – accepting of neologisms. It was a mix of residual British/old Roman, Saxon/Anglisch and Norman French [Scandinavian/Latinate] [all thorough mixes, note].
English changes when ‘something works’ – e.g. textish, or MMORPGs, or – whatever.
If it works, English will use it [‘steal it’].
English is easy to start – Gower’s ‘Plain Words’ has just 850 words, for everything non technical.
English has perhaps [my guess] 2 billion people who speak it as a second tongue, plus at least half a billion who have it as their mother tongue.
The Wiki:
“Besides the major varieties of English, such as Indian English, British English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English, Irish English, New Zealand English and their sub-varieties, countries such as the South Africa, Philippines, Jamaica and Nigeria also have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from English-based creole languages to Standard English.”
And many – not all, true, but lots and lots of – migrants wish to go to the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada, and other English-speaking countries.
It is humbly suggested that none of Ptolemy’s listed languages will supplant this head-start that English enjoys, given English’s flexibility.
Auto – note:
– I work in shipping – which is just one of numerous industries where there is a common vocabulary, which is English (with a few minor modifications).
Realistically – how will a Uruguay business person talk to a Japanese ditto?
Or a Finn to a Kenyan?
Or a Malaysian to a Mexican?
Etc.

Spent 4 months in Singapore and the Malay spoke with the Chinese spoke with the Japanese spoke with the English all in English. Spent two months in Taiwan, and all of the shipyard workers and store owners spoke….English! I was in Bahrain back some 40 years ago at the Moon Plaza Hotel bar. I was sitting between an Arab taxi driver and a Norwegian sailor. We were conversing in……ENGLISH. Curiously, each told me, in a sotto voice, not to trust the other. Good advice! I have a Hindu friend here in Texas from Bangalore, who speaks English very well. We asked and he said that his parents had raised him with English as a first language. What did his parents know that that the Democrats don’t know? Or, are they deliberately keeping the Hispanics from becoming fluent in English?

The calculation was for oil at $45 a barrel. The problem – global demand for oil is increasing by about 1.2 to 1.6 million barrels of oil per day per year. Right now, global oil production is about 96 million barrels of oil every day. By year end 2017, the EIA estimates at oil consumption to be 97.4.
The current surplus of oil will end in a few more months. At which time, given growing demand for oil, the price will climb and it should climb fast back to $100+ a barrel.
The reason for the rapid climb in oil prices is due to the fact that the surplus of oil that exists now caused prices of oil to remain low long enough that drilling and exploration around the world for oil has plummeted. Once oil prices recover, the trend will reverse but it will take about 3 years for high oil prices to once more cause the oil production curve to head in an upwards manner. In the mean time, this will mean increasingly higher oil prices due to the inexorable increase in oil demand coupled with lack of production increases during that period. Indeed, by mid 2017, world oil production will be declining and will continue to do so until higher oil prices have an effect.
In the longer term, what is happening is most oil used around the world is still from large oil reservoirs some of which have been producing for 30 or even in some cases 60 years. Eventually, those large oil reservoirs will run dry. As that happens, it now appears that it will be very difficult to produce sufficient oil given current trends and technology. Of course, some new invention may change things.
Given the above, opening up US oil reservoirs is very timely. For example, if the Atlantic coast was open to drilling, it would take most projects over a decade to produce oil. First the geological data is gathered, then the exploration drilling (which takes more time and planning that most would believe). Then finally, if oil is found, the offshore project is planned, the materials and parts are sources and the project begins to be built. All the above would take 10 to 20 years depending on the water depth.
Opening up some additional areas in Alaska given there is the Alaska pipeline would have a much faster turn around time. Probably 5 or 6 years.
Most people don’t know this but the US oil shale boom is almost entirely on state and private land. The US government regulation has effectively prohibited most shale drilling on Federal land. The EPA has been pushing to add federal regulations and effectively regulate the private and state drilling. If they did this, it would severely impact the US shale oil drilling and production. If Trump were elected and brought the EPA under control. One interesting factoid based on safety and other statistics, federal regulations don’t have the impact of making drilling safer. Under state regulatory authorities, statistics show the regulation is as thorough and more effective in increasing safety. The difference is that the State regulations are clearly written, and the regulatory authorities grant/deny or request more information quickly especially when oil companies use the same construction and drilling plans over and over which they usually do. Permits can be granted in less than a week. For the Federal government, it can take months or even years to get from the request for a permit to actually drilling a well.

I wish you were right about the steep climb to $100/bbl (the current strip barely reaches $52 by the end of 2018) and I think the Atlantic OCS could be fast-tracked a bit quicker than 10-20 years (we have actually learned a lot in the Gulf of Mexico) and I think most large old fields will last longer than many people think (the best place to look for oil is where it’s already been found)… Otherwise, spot-on.http://lasvegastribune.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/donald-trump-thumbs-up.jpg

David Middleton wrote: “I wish you were right about the steep climb to $100/bbl (the current strip barely reaches $52 by the end of 2018) … ”
Keep in mind that the decline of oil prices starting in 2014 and other declines prior to that were not forecast by the strip nor were most rapid increases in the past. I can’t say if my prediction will turn out correct – I guess we will have to wait and see.
As to the time frame of 10 to 20 years for the Atlantic sea coast to start getting any production:
If it is opened to drilling, a very optimistic schedule is:
1 to 2 years before anyone starts getting 3D seismic + 6 to 12 months of processing and analysis.
Year 3 – start leasing of blocks
Year 4 (shallower water) prospect drilling begins probably lasting several years for most prospective areas found on seismic.
If oil is found, year 4 but more likely year 5 could start of project planning (shallower water)
Year 5 to year 6 begin construction of long lead items and permitting of pipelines and etc. Construction begins on platforms,pipelines and other equipment. Year 7 but more likely year 8, platforms begin to arrive, pipelines being built and etc. Everything has to be build from scratch including facilities on shore. Year 8 or 9 start drilling production wells. Year 10, begin selling oil.
Deep water – everything takes a lot longer. Keep in mind that in the Gulf of Mexico, everything is already there including many existing pipelines, refineries and suppliers. Yet, most new projects takes over a decade to flow oil to shore from the time the oil is found.

I hope we get just as surprised by high oil prices as we were by the collapse… I just can’t bank on it.
Regarding the seismic… It would already be available if the Obama Maladministration had not roadblocked the seismic contractors for the last 8 years. Once the environmental roadblocks are lifted, The most prospective areas could be covered with a fairly dense grid of modern 2d data within a year. Oil companies would have from the time the data were delivered until the date the bids were due, to interpret it.
First production from the shelf should take less than 5 years from the first Atlantic OCS lease sale, particularly if the shelf blocks have 5-yr lease terms like the Gulf. Exploration of the shelf and deepwater would be concurrent. Deepwater would definitely take longer; but any economic discoveries should be online within 10 years of the first lease sale… particularly if lease terms are 10 years like the Gulf.
Let’s take a look at an example from the early days of Gulf of Mexico deepwater operations:
Shell’s Auger Field, Garden Banks blocks 427, 428, 470 & 471 was leased in 1984 and 1985.

Located 255 miles (410 kilometers) southeast of Houston and 214 miles (344 kilometers) southwest of New Orleans, the Auger field spans Garden Banks Blocks 426, 427, 470 and 471. Acquired through two mid-1980s OCS Lease Sales, the field is wholly owned and operated by Shell.
Drilled in 1987 by the Zane Barnes semisub (now the Jack Bates semisub), the discovery well on Garden Banks Block 426 was followed up by an appraisal well and three sidetracks across the fields’ four blocks. These successful wells, in addition to 3D seismic, were used to determine field development.SubSeaIQ

First production was in 1994… 10 years after the first lease was awarded. This was accomplished at a time when deepwater operations were relatively immature and the economic viability was in question, Technology, from seismic acquisition and processing to facilities design, engineering and construction have come a long way since the 1980’s.

David Middleton wrote: “I wish you were right about the steep climb to $100/bbl (the current strip barely reaches $52 by the end of 2018)”
If not for the low gasoline prices we currently have, the U.S. would be in an economic recession. Every increase of $0.80 per gallon of gasoline reduces U.S. Gross Domestic Product by one percent. Every reduction of $0.80 per gallon increases U.S. GDP by about one percent. Obviously, lower gasoline prices are better for the economy than high gasoline prices. I see no benefit to high gasoline prices other than to the stock traders and the oil companies.

@ BobG, good post, the one thing you did not mention is the fact that there are thousands of capped wells that have proven reserves and are being held back for a number of reasons Those could and would be put into production at a very good clip once the market makes them viable and without much “exploration” needed. We also need, and desperately so, more pipeline capacity that I believe is currently a huge problem, especially in Canada and other First Nation regions, were the environmentalists have been sadly very successful in stopping or delaying many much needed projects ( In my opinion the First Nations by allowing resorts casinos on their land but no pipelines is the height of hypocrisy )

Not really. Stripper well production has changed very little over the past 25 years.http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2016.06.29/main.png
If people were sitting on shut-in stripper wells, waiting for high prices, stripper well production would have shot up in 2006-2008 and 2010-2014. It didn’t.
They don’t cost much to operate and generate no revenue if shut-in. Furthermore, if you shut the well in, you risk losing the lease.

Right on, thanks. My understanding is trillions of tons of methane have been found on the ocean arctic floors; and needs to be removed before nature releases it; causing a huge problem for the entire animal kingdom; likely much death and destruction. This is true of nearly all other petroleum and metals production. If not taken from where it sits, nature will continue to leach it or move it into
rivers, lakes, oceans, and the atmosphere. Mean petroleum extraction and mining should be encouraged everywhere to minimize toxic leaching from these natural sources and movement of natural petroleum and related into locations causing animal kingdom huge problems with health and sustainability. And the alternate energy sources, appear very wasteful, foolishness, and a boondoggle to date should be left to the market place to decide their future. Having government subsidize energy development instead of letting market forces decide what is best appears suicidal; at least in the long run; probably the short run also in small economies. It is not yet too late to recover from the erroneous and insane direction of allowing the government to so hugely intervene in market forces.
Filtering down or through the voters of these facts to the electorate is questionable. I hope everyone is prepared to figuratively pounce on the Democrats, especially Hillary for their incredible foolishness. She appears to only respond to overwhelming public opinion; which may not get through here on this vital topic. The public has been near totally mislead so far; based on occasional conversations I have had with supposed environmentalists. I can not even get the
governor of my state to acknowledge this foolishness; and get off the backs and stop being an obstructionist of mining and petroleum extraction. 14 years and counting to get a local mining project going; and the state is still screwing around. They are intent on listening to and considering everyone’s opinion, no matter how erroneous. Knowledge and fact does not trump a voters rights based on their actions. Incredible. Erroneous education appears to be a real problem.

I went to your wikipedia methane source and looked under reservoir supplies.
It says hundreds of gigatonnes at several geologic locations.
I have not simplified, but summarized; as near as I can tell.
And from the description, most of it could find its way into ocean
water and the atmosphere with time. A real potential long
term problem that can be reduced and used by humanity
rather than threatening our environment; or threatening
humanity much less if a good portion of it is
removed and used before nature releases it.

David Middleton wrote, “First production from the shelf should take less than 5 years from the first Atlantic OCS lease sale, particularly if the shelf blocks have 5-yr lease terms like the Gulf.”
Ah, I don’t think the lease terms work that way. If the term were 5 years, the companies have 5 years to spud a well or (for those others reading who may not be familiar with the terminology it means to start the process of drilling the well). If a lease owner makes a discovery and is working to develop it with an approved plan, the lease gets extended as it does if the lease owner is drilling wells. All of the ultra-deep projects I know of had to have their lease extended in this way given the time it takes for development.
Also, I was wrong on the timing of the lease sale. Having checked the documentation, unless the BOEM lease process was updated, it would probably take 2.5 to 5 years for the government to provide a lease.http://www.boem.gov/uploadedFiles/BOEM/Oil_and_Gas_Energy_Program/Leasing/5BOEMRE_Leasing101.pdf

@Bob G:
Lease terms on the shelf have been 5-years since at least the first area-wide lease sale in 1983. Deepwater was mostly 10-yr lease terms since 1983. Some parts of the deepwater were 8-yr terms; although you lose the lease if you don’t spud a well in the first 5-yrs. BOEM recently shortened the deepwater lease terms.
The BOEM is legally required to accept or reject the high bid within a fairly short period of time, generally less than 4 months.http://www.boem.gov/Summary-of-Procedures-For-Determining-Bid-Adequacy/
If you spud a well before the lease expiration and it results in a discovery, you can apply for an SOP (Suspension of Production). If approved, you may be granted additional time to bring the well on production. There is no guarantee of an SOP.
In the early days of deepwater exploration SOP’s were fairly common That is no longer the case because the technology has matured.
My first deepwater discovery (2,400′ WD) was leased in 2004, the first well was drilled in 2006 and production from a 30 mile subsea tieback to a shelf platform was commenced in 2009. It would have been on sooner, if not for Hurricane Ike. This would not have been possible in the early days of deepwater exploration.
Ultradeepwater is an entirely different animal. When the Lower Tertiary play was discovered in ultradeepwater, the means to produce it didn’t exist in the Gulf of Mexico.
The first ultradeepwater field to be brought on production in the Gulf was the Chinook Field (8,800′ WD) on Walker Ridge 425 & 469. It was leased in 1996 with a 10-yr term The first well was drilled in 2000 and the discovery well was drilled in 2003, 7 years after the lease was awarded. At this point, Petrobras began design work on a massive Floating Production Production and Storage (FPSO) vessel and applied for a series of SOP’s. The first FPSO in the Gulf of Mexico was delivered in 2010 and commenced production in 2012… 16 years after the lease was awarded. Considering the fact that it was the first FPSO in the Gulf and the first production from a new play, that’s pretty fast.http://www.subseaiq.com/data/Project.aspx?project_id=124

DM, you cannot include the Green River kerogen shale in your calculations. The resource is there, and a portion is minable and retortable. But for each barrel of kerogen derived syncrude, you need between 3-5 barrels of water. The water isn’t ‘there’ despite the Geeen Eivee being the largest Colorado tributary. Its all already bespoke by the Colorado Compact of 1922, and the whole drainage basin is suffering an annual shortfall of about 1.5 million acre feet below the Compact allotments that are being fully used. Thats why Powell and Meade are so far down. Only if you completely eliminate Las Vegas, LA, and Phoenix could a few million barrels/year be produced.
OTH, to see the Alaskan pipeline fail because of prohibitions on ANWR1002 exploration is the height of foolishness. Its all incremental infrastructure.

There is plenty of water available; the limitation is water infrastructure…

The gross amount of water available locally in the Piceance Basin in a typical year did not appear to be a constraining factor, according to the 1981 water assessment by the U.S. Water Resources Council. Based on hydrologic understanding at the time, the council determined that available supplies of ground and surface water resources could support production of nearly 3 million barrels of shale oil per day.
The most constraining factor appears to be the water supply infrastructure. Limitations in local water supply systems in place in the late 1970s were expected to start constraining shale oil production when levels reached 200,000–400,000 barrels per day (OTA, Volume I, 1980).http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG414.pdf

Infrastructure limitations can easily be overcome.
Shell estimates that they could be producing 500,000 barrels per day from the Picenance Basin with a very small footprint using an in situ recovery process…

Technical Viability and Commercial Readiness (pp 18-24)
Shell has tested its in-situ process at a very small scale on Shell’s private holdings in the Piceance Basin. The energy yield of the extracted liquid and gas is equal to that predicted by the standardized assay test.13 The heating energy required for this process equals about one-sixth the energy value of the extracted product. These tests have indicated that the process may be technically and economically viable.
This approach requires no subsurface mining and thus may be capable of achieving high resource recovery in the deepest and thickest portions of the U.S. oil shale resource. Most important, the Shell in-situ process can be implemented without the massive disturbance to land that would be caused by the only other method capable of high energy/resource recovery—namely, deep surface mining combined with surface retorting. The footprint of this approach is exceptionally small. When applied to the thickest oil shale deposits of the Piceance Basin, drilling in about 150 acres per year could support sustained production of a half-million barrels of oil per day and 500 billion cubic feet per year of natural gas.
[…]
Once oil shale development reaches the production growth stage, how fast and how large the industry grows will depend on the economic competitiveness of shale derived oil with other liquid fuels and on how the issues raised in Chapter Five are ultimately resolved. If long lead-time activities are started in the prior stage, the first follow-on commercial operations could begin production within four years. Counting from the start of the production growth stage and assuming that 200,000 barrels per day of increased production capacity can be added each year, total production would reach 1 million barrels per day in seven years, 2 million barrels per day in 12 years, and 3 million barrels in 17 years.

Assuming a 12-yr lead time to reach the production growth stage, it will take ~30 years to reach 3 million barrels per day. If production continued to grow at a rate of 1 million BOPD every 5 years… Oil shale production from just the Piceance Basin could reach 15 million BOPD by the end of this century.
The hydrocarbon characteristics of the the oil shales of the Green River formation in the Piceance Basin are superior to those of the Athabasca oil sands. The hydrocarbon areal density is about 13 times that of the Athabasca deposits. The Green River hydrocarbons are not technically “oil;” it’s a form of kerogen. But, for or refining purposes, it’s oil. It will be booked as oil, just like the Athabasca tar sand oil is. It’s a high-grade refinery feedstock…“Kerogen can be converted to superior quality jet fuel, #2 diesel, and other high value by-products.”
The Green River oil shale deposits in the Piceance basin could easily outperform Athabasca within a decade and with a much smaller environmental footprint.
Athabasca oil sands are currently economically competitive with the OPEC basket. Green River formation oil shales are superior, by a wide margin, to Athabasca oil sands. The Green River oil shales would yield 100,000 bbl of 38° API sweet refinery feed per 160,000 tons of ore & overburden. Athabasca oil sands yield 100,000 bbl of 34° sweet refinery feed per 430,000 tons of ore & overburden. The unconventional oil is actually very light and very sweet; the OPEC Basket is actually heavier (32.7° API).
Athabasca is economically competitive now. Green River could be economically competitive now. The only obstacles to US energy security are environmental nitwits, the U.S. government and low oil prices.

A 1981 waterreport is useless. In 1981 Meade and Powell were full. The problem is the past decade or so. Look at the reservoir bathtub rings. The water is NOT there now to support any kerogen shale production.

The Rand report is from 2005. The 1981 report refers to “water available locally in the Piceance Basin in a typical year”…

The gross amount of water available locally in the Piceance Basin in a typical year did not appear to be a constraining factor, according to the 1981 water assessment by the U.S. Water Resources Council. Based on hydrologic understanding at the time, the council determined that available supplies of ground and surface water resources could support production of nearly 3 million barrels of shale oil per day.

There is no water in the Piceance available. All is taken under existing water rights, though rights are still held by oil companies that have been kept since the oil shale bust of the 70’s.
The Green River shale is a “fools” paradise. Having lived and grown up in and around the Piceance I know of no successful attempt at extraction without first being heavily subsidized. In every attempt made to make the Green River shale profitable the EROEI has always turned out to be less than one.
Claiming the Green River Shale is a viable energy source by any politician, or anyone, is a lie.

SMS September 7, 2016 at 12:00 pm Edit
There is no water in the Piceance available. All is taken under existing water rights, though rights are still held by oil companies that have been kept since the oil shale bust of the 70’s.
The Green River shale is a “fools” paradise. Having lived and grown up in and around the Piceance I know of no successful attempt at extraction without first being heavily subsidized. In every attempt made to make the Green River shale profitable the EROEI has always turned out to be less than one.
Claiming the Green River Shale is a viable energy source by any politician, or anyone, is a lie.

Since the Green River Oil Shale has not been open for anything other than R&D demonstration projects since the early 1980’s, there is no way to know how much of the USGS-estimated 1.2 trillion barrels of recoverable “oil” could be economically recovered.http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2013/3115/pdf/fs2013-3115.pdf
Regarding water…

Commercial oil shale development requires water for numerous activities throughout its life cycle, but estimates vary widely for the amount of water needed to commercially produce oil shale primarily because of the unproven nature of some technologies and because the various ways of generating power for operations use differing quantities of water. GAO’s review of available studies indicated that the expected total water needs for the entire life cycle of oil shale production range from about 1 barrel (or 42 gallons) to 12 barrels of water per barrel of oil produced from in-situ (underground heating) operations, with an average of about 5 barrels, and from about 2 to 4 barrels of water per barrel of oil produced from mining operations with surface heating, with an average of about 3 barrels.
GAO reported that water is likely to be available for the initial development of an oil shale industry but that the size of an industry in Colorado or Utah may eventually be limited by water availability.http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11929t.pdf

Considering the fact that in-situ development of oil shale would release 1/3 to 2/3 of a barrel of water per barrel of oil, not that much water would be needed if the low end estimate of water consumption for in-situ development was achieved.

David Middleton September 7, 2016 at 11:19 am
ristvan is correct there is no water for such a enterprise. One of two things would need to happen.The climate would have to change to the point that the reservoirs were filled to over flowing. Or you would have to truck water into the area at a huge cost
michael

@Mike the Morelock…
Setting aside the 2005 Rand report which says water wouldn’t be a constraining issue…
From the GAO in 2011…

Commercial oil shale development requires water for numerous activities throughout its life cycle, but estimates vary widely for the amount of water needed to commercially produce oil shale primarily because of the unproven nature of some technologies and because the various ways of generating power for operations use differing quantities of water. GAO’s review of available studies indicated that the expected total water needs for the entire life cycle of oil shale production range from about 1 barrel (or 42 gallons) to 12 barrels of water per barrel of oil produced from in-situ (underground heating) operations, with an average of about 5 barrels, and from about 2 to 4 barrels of water per barrel of oil produced from mining operations with surface heating, with an average of about 3 barrels.
GAO reported that water is likely to be available for the initial development of an oil shale industry but that the size of an industry in Colorado or Utah may eventually be limited by water availability.http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11929t.pdf

Since the in-situ recovery process will release 1/3 to 2/3 of a barrel of water per barrel of “oil,” they won’t need very much water if they can hit the low end of in-situ recovery water consumption estimates (1 bbl of water per bbl of oil).

David, the residual water in oil shale is part of the problem when trying to extract the kerogen. Just ask Shell. Unocal did have a large size plant up Parachute Creek years ago and it could only sustain itself using the large subsidies given out by the government. Enormous amounts of land were given to the oil companies in an attempt to extract Kerogen. We have nothing to show for the land given away or for the subsidies paid out using our taxes.
As we are writing this, another company is closing up shop on another failed attempt to find a way to make the Green River Shale profitable as they start the plug and abandonment of wells in Utah. Just another example of the many failures over the past 100 years to make a profit on something that refuses to be profitable.

@ SMS,
The economics shouldn’t be up to the BLM. Outside of Marxism, business economic decisions are generally private sector matters.
The Federal acreage in the Piceance has not been open to commercial shale oil development since the early 1980’s. This is a cold, hard fact. The legacy Parachute River plant was the product of failed 1970’s policies and technology.
Recent R&D projects clearly demonstrated that commercial development was possible. This doesn’t mean that it would turn out to be economically viable. It just demonstrates the possibility. Until such time that the Green River Oil Shale is fully open to commercial development for a protracted period of time, through multiple ups and downs of the commodity cycle, we won’t know if it will be economically viable. We will never know so long as the Federal government keeps moving the regulatory goal posts.

So much arguing over local water…
Take the railcars that carry the produced oil to refineries in the gulf, fill them with water from river outflow points (where it goes away anyway) for the return trip… the water doesn’t need to be very clean for the oil process…
If oil sent out by pipeline, put a parallel water pipe in place on the right of way…
Moving liquids is a well understood technology…

The Parachute Creek plant was part of the Jimmy Carter’s synthetic fuels program. It closed in 1991…

In a last gasp for Jimmy Carter-era synthetic fuel programs, Unocal Corp. said Tuesday that it will suspend production at its $650-million shale oil project in Parachute Creek, Colo., citing continued losses.
Closure of the 13-year-old project, the only remaining commercial shale oil operation in the country, spells the apparent end of major efforts to squeeze oil from rocks as a way to displace imported crude.
Officials blamed the project’s lack of profits on falling oil prices and production problems. The plant, which was first announced in March, 1978, will shut down June 1, despite renewed concerns about the nation’s energy security in the wake of the Persian Gulf War.
“This was the last of the major alternative energy projects from a cycle back in the late 1970s and early 1980s,” said George J. Gaspar, a petroleum analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. in Milwaukee.http://articles.latimes.com/1991-03-27/business/fi-898_1_shale-oil

Low oil prices and uncertain prospects for being able to expand production will tend to dampen enthusiasm.
Shell and Chevron closed their recent R&D projects after the Federal government halted all new oil shale leasing and made it clear that they would not approve commercial development. So, they shut down their R&D projects and shifted their resources to other priorities.

I would believe that the reason the BLM is holding back on leases is the lack of economics. Chevron has extended leases in the Piceance. They didn’t build a full size plant for good reason; it’s not economic. The same for Exxon, Occidental, and Encana (Unocal).
There are large chunks of the Piceance that have been given to different oil companies to develop an economic oil shale project. Keep in mind, only certain horizons in the Green River hold oil in significant quantities. The Mahogany being one such zone. You have to have the Mahogany in reach to even make a project feasible.
The recent Redleaf, Enfit, and Total projects shut down for economic reasons. No one had any real interest in building a full size processing plant when the price was $100/bbl. If not at $100/bbl then where? The economics were not there. You have to build into your economics the low price model for your project. These companies made the right decision. When the price of oil gets to $100/bbl, you aren’t going to put your money in the Green River. You’ll put it into shale oil like the Eagleford, drilling off shore or secondary and tertiary recovery projects.
The Green River has shown itself to be a money pit for R&D. You would be better off spending your money on bogus climate change studies.

@ SMS,
The economics shouldn’t be up to the BLM. Outside of Marxism, business economic decisions are generally private sector matters.
The Federal acreage in the Piceance has not been open to commercial shale oil development since the early 1980’s. This is a cold, hard fact. The legacy Parachute River plant was the product of failed 1970’s policies and technology.
Recent R&D projects clearly demonstrated that commercial development was possible. This doesn’t mean that it would turn out to be economically viable. It just demonstrates the possibility. Until such time that the Green River Oil Shale is fully open to commercial development for a protracted period of time, through multiple ups and downs of the commodity cycle, we won’t know if it will be economically viable. We will never know so long as the Federal government keeps moving the regulatory goal posts.
And no oil company was “given” acreage.

David, the CA and CB tracts still exist. As do the other tracts given away to interested oil companies in the 70’s. These are massive tracts that can generate enough oil shale kerogen to maintain a project if it were profitable. They are not!!!!. If they were, these projects would have been built. That is a fact. Chevron and Encana own two of those tracts still today and they use them to access the gas horizons below the Green River. Because they own the tracts (surface and subsurface) they also own the mineral rights and do not have to pay royal fees.
The Chevron, Exxon, Occidental and Unocal projects were shut down for economics. Each company invested large amounts of money in each of their R and D projects, only to abandon each before they even got started. Occidental dug a deep shaft with a massive concrete head shaft to get to the Mahogany. That concrete head shaft stood out on the horizon of Piceance Creek for years. The Occidental head shaft was a (white elephant) reminder of how subsidies create false economics and generate bad projects. The Occidental head shaft was finally taken down with explosives and is no longer a reminder of how subsidies distort project economics. If either Occidental, Chevron, Unocal, Texaco, Exxon, Shell, Total, Enefit American or any of the other companies could have made a go of the Green River, they would have commercial projects operating. They don’t.
The after affect of Exxon’s pullout from the Piceance was devastating for the small communities that surround the Piceance. That is a fact! Exxon did not pull out because they could not get a commercial project permit. They pulled out because the price of oil was dropping and they weren’t going to spend any more money on a pie in the sky project.
There have been attempts to make the Green River oil shale profitable for a 100 years and it has not happened. And it will not happen. Money will flow to where it can find the best return and as long as the Green River has a EROEI less than one, it’s not going to get any interest beyond that created by subsidies.

David,
A large glut in crude would push down prices below $45 per barrel to the point where only currently producing wells would be economically viable. Therefore, I don’t think your projections are realistic.
In the final analysis, some degree of regulation actually benefits established producers.

The opening of ANWR and other Federal lands and waters wouldn’t lead to a sudden glut of oil production. It would take years to exploit these newly opened areas and they would be exploited only as they became economically viable.
However, never opening them isn’t beneficial to anyone.
Consistent, lawful, regulation is good for everyone. Dynamic, unlawful regulatory malfeasance is good for no one. Blocking ANWR and the Alaska OCS to the point that TAPS has to be shut down and dismantled is regulatory malfeasance writ large.

ANWR would take less than five years to bring on production. The Atlantic OCS could see it’s first production within five years of the first lease sale. However, all of the steps leading up to production would generate economic activity. Geophysical contractors would begin shooting and processing seismic data. From the moment these areas were opened they would begin generating economic activity.
If the areas are never opened up, they will generate no economic activity. In the case of ANWR, not opening it would destroy nearly $2 trillion dollars of assets.

Oil gluts are good for consumers and the economy. It forces the oil companies to look for other revenue opportunities. My favorite: mining the asteroid belt; or looking for oil there. May sound too far out now. But in 20 to 50 years, is a real possibility. It is just too expensive to haul raw materials into space. Only people, their computers, and their tools need to go into space; to keep the cost down or reasonable.

“David,
A large glut in crude would push down prices below $45 per barrel to the point where only currently producing wells would be economically viable. Therefore, I don’t think your projections are realistic.”
I think the price of oil will stay pretty close to what it is now. A lot of wells were shut down because the lower oil prices made them uneconomical, but as prices rise, these wells will be put back into production, which will tend to keep the prices down. The question is at what prices does it become economical for these wells to be put back into production.

The economics of oil production are complicated. Right now the cost of oil is something like the cost of production in North America. Saudi Arabia has the tap turned on wide open and that makes North American oil a lot less profitable.
Based on the above, I don’t think oil will get much cheaper even if we are allowed to drill everywhere. Also, I don’t think the cost of oil is the main thing holding back the economy.
Trump’s projections are probably overblown. On the other hand, if Hillary gets her hands on the levers of power, we are in for a real drubbing. If energy gets a lot more expensive in America, it will hurt the American economy. It will drive out jobs and China will prosper.

David, I agree largely with what you are saying. Another thing that is not being pointed out is the security aspect, we are still at the mercy of many countries that have no real good feelings towards the west, and our own secure supply would lift that threat from our backs, I believe that is an important point. I hope the dimwits in our current Canadian Government understands that aspect soon but I have my doubts.

The socio-cultural damage to the US from imported oil also need to be calculated, in addition to the pure economic arguments. The problem is that 10% of the price of each Saudi barrel of oil comes back to the West in the form of Wahabi propaganda and Wahabi support for subversive activities.
For instance the King Fahd school in London, which is funded by Saudi Arabia, was found to be teaching its pupils that Christians and Jeews are apes and pigs. (This is taken from Korran 5:60 – The Table – and oft-quoted by imams. The reference to People of the Book is a common term for Jeews and Christians.)
They tried to make out that the King Fahd school was purely a diplomat school, but it was not. It was a normal London private school subject to council regulations and Ofstead inspections, that happened to have a lot of Saudi diplomatic pupils. (And the son’s of the UK’s most prolific hate-preacher.)
UK Standard Newspaper report.
The BBC also had a good Newsnight report on Youtube, but have withdrawn it.http://www.standard.co.uk/news/muslim-school-that-taught-pupils-from-race-hate-textbooks-made-photocopies-after-order-to-shred-them-6655359.html
R

Whether or not the benefits are “overstated” is a big red herring. So what if they are? The point is that it is a plus for the economy, whereas what Hilly wants to do will be a big minus. The choice is between going backwards (Hilly) and going forward (Trump).

To me the best thing would be to add a tariff to all non-North American oil. The tariff would be something like $65 (breakeven in the US for most wells) less WTI at the time. So if WTI is $45, the tariff would be $20; WTI at $55, the tariff would be $10. Would basically put a floor on oil in the US, shift production to the US/Canada, encourage efficiencies in the US/Canada and put a very large group of people back to work.
The tariff earnings could go into infrastructure repair. The downside is everyone would be paying for the actual price of oil.
Additionally re-evaluate the regulations and onerous business rules.

The accuracy of economic forecasting is notoriously poor when it comes to these sorts of outcomes. Needless to say opening up increased reserves will keep down or reduce prices of energy. Comparatively renewables become more expensive. The money saved by not supporting renewables will be available to be used in the wider economy. Like China , who is continuing at a frenetic pace in its pumping out of CO2 whilst the rest of the world puts on its CO2 shackles under a Trump energy regime the US could gain considerable advantage over other countries who are tying their futures to ridiculous renewable targets. The future impacts of relative GDPs of countries that follow the China/ Trump energy models compared to those that follow the EU/ UN model will be stark.

China is pumping money into renewables at an increased rate… it has overcapacity in coal plant and is trying to cut back (additionally to reduce pollution).
The position re coal in china has changed massively in only the last two to three years… you cannot now say or assume the old ‘keep on building’ coal China exists…

Trump needs to get the truth about agw and useless green energy to the voters imo. If he does it right he can expose the democrats for lying about the consensus, reexpose climategate,
Reveal miky manns hockey stick fraud, show how the ipcc lied, The truth is easy if he can tell it right. He can’t blame china because it is not true. He must learn then tell the truth.the media will have no choice but to tell the truth.

“Trump needs to get the truth about agw and useless green energy to the voters imo.”
That’s a complicated subject not suited to the type of soundbites one gets in a debate.
The main thing is *Trump* needs to know the truth about the CAGW sc@m, and I think he does, and then when Trump gets in Office, he can expose the CAGW theory for what it is, and he will have the power to take action against those in government who were/are trying to scare us into believing an expensive fairy tale.

Let’s be clear: This is an IER report, not a plan by Donald Trump.
I would think this report is highly optimistic. The potential of the Pacific, Atlantic and Eastern Gulf resources are most likely less than that of the developed Gulf of Mexico, whose output is currently around $30 bn per year. The development of the coastal shelves could be a good thing, but I think we need to keep the numbers in better perspective.
Powder River Coal could certainly be good, but it’s tricky to transport and has a relatively low heat content. The resource is huge; its market demand is less certain.
The ANWR drilling is incredibly important. Right now, Alaska is set to exit the oil business after 2030. Oil provides nearly 90% of state revenues. Without those revenues, Alaska’s economy is likely to face severe pressure, with our estimates of ensuing population loss at 1/4 to 1/3 of the current total. It’s a big deal, but we don’t have a good sense of the resource in ANWR, in large part because drilling is prohibited. Greenlighting exploratory work in ANWR is a no brainer.

Trump’s “plan” is based on the IER report. To the extent that he has a “plan,” this is his plan.
We won’t know what the real numbers are for ANWR, the Atlantic OCS or any of these other areas until we are actually allowed to explore and exploit them.
We do know what the USGS and other Federal entities estimate the resource potential to be and history tells us that the oil industry tends to find and produce 4-6 times as much oil & gas as the the government initially estimated. Alaska’s North Slope has already produced 16 billion barrels of petroleum liquids. Currently developed areas will ultimately produce a total of about 30 billion barrels. The government’s original forecast for the North Slope’s total production was 10 billion barrels. The current USGS estimate for undiscovered oil in the Bakken play of Montana & North Dakota is 25 times larger than the same agency’s 1995 estimate. In 1987, the MMS (now BOEM/BSEE) undiscovered resource estimate for the Gulf of Mexico was 9 billion barrels. Today it is 45 billion barrels.
The MMS increased the estimate of undiscovered oil in the Gulf of Mexico from 9 billion barrels in 1987 to the current 45 billion barrels because we discovered a helluva a lot more than 9 billion barrels in the Gulf over the last 20 years. Almost all of the large US fields discovered since 1988 were discovered in the deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico. In 1988, it was unclear whether or not the deepwater plays would prove to be economic.
Based on the gov’t’s track record, the estimated 116 billion barrels of undiscovered conventional oil under Federal lands is more likely to be 680 billion barrels. That’s close to 100 years worth of current US consumption – And that’s just the undiscovered oil under Federal mineral leases.

While I cheer on energy independence for the USA, if these reserves are all opened up, once the oil/natural gas starts to flow, won’t that start to drop the price of the commodity? Supply/demand? I know the demand is ever increasing, but when the oil started flowing from the shale deposits out west, that helped lower the $$/Barrel. Although Saudi Arabia helped a bit trying to drive it low enough to force our production to stop. It worked so well that the price lowered so much that some facilities couldn’t be profitable and stopped production.
What I don’t understand is whenever the price of crude drops, so does my stock portfolio. I thought that if energy costs lowered, then businesses would be more profitable with lower energy bills. Why does the stock market drop with crude price drops, can someone explain that for me?

Consider the hit taken by the energy industry and all peripherals, which is a major portion of the US economy. There’s a huge ripple effect, not the least of which are State Gov’t budget shortfalls in the energy producing states. Everyone appreciates lower prices at the pump, but when prices fall so far that the energy infrastructure can’t be supported, then there is a problem. Boom and bust.

Bruce:
Maybe but I don’t think so – at least not in Canada. Too many interlinked industries. Stock answer used to be that lower oil prices would benefit manufacturing – but it appears that many manufacturing industries were/are tied to the oil/gas industry sometimes with several degrees of separation. Plus the manufacturing centre in Canada is beset with Alternative Energy Driven YUUGE price increases so Manufacturing isn’t going anywhere (except moving offshore). The Athabasca Oil Sands and the US shale plays provided significant economic spin offs. Manufacturing has not offset the losses and the loss to the economy affects many things right down to automotive demand. If you look back at what happened in 1983, it took 10 plus years to recover. Expect history to repeat itself. And with manufacturing moving to lower energy and labour cost environments, maybe much, much longer. We need higher oil prices to stimulate the economy, as much as that may seem backa$$wards to many folks. IMHO.

“What I don’t understand is whenever the price of crude drops, so does my stock portfolio. I thought that if energy costs lowered, then businesses would be more profitable with lower energy bills. Why does the stock market drop with crude price drops, can someone explain that for me?”
Lower gasoline prices are a net positive for the economy, and helps the poorest in the nation the most.
Your stock portfolio, in the shortterm, is not determined by how the U.S. economy is doing, but by how your stocks are doing. Naturally, when oil prices go down, the price of oil company stocks and related industries go down in unison. You, no doubt, are invested in some of these stocks so your portfolio value decreases. If you don’t want to be subject to this fluctuation, then invest in companies not associated with oil production. Invest in companies that benefit from lower gasoline prices. Then, when the oil price goes down, your portfolio goes up.
I know the business channels always seem to hype the higher oil prices. They do this because most of the time oil prices can give you a window into how the economy is doing. So if oil prices are high, that must mean the economies are booming, and if they are low, the economies must not be doing so well. That’s why they focus on the oil price.
High oil prices may be good for stock traders and oil companies, but they are *not* a good thing for the U.S. economy under any circumstances. The lower, the better.

During my Economics education, we did 2 whole weeks on Marxism. Several years on market economics and government regulation. Whole classes on optimization of production (“linear programming”).
I’m sure it is the other way around in Russia and China, but please do remember there are also The Chicago School and The Austrian School economists who revile Marxism.
Oh, and necessary mention of the British Keynsians who seem to run most central banks…
BTW, I’m pretty sure I never read Ehrlich. Looked at the liner notes and saw no need… He did the Doom From Population stuff, IIRC. It was thought very stupid in the demographics discussions in classes that covered demographic issues.
That was a few decades ago, though, so no idea about current colleges.

There is also a wild card against Trump and that is the questionable funding to NGOs like Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Tides and the Clinton Foundation from countries like Saudi Arabia, China, Russia who do not want to see Tump in the big chair.

nc September 7, 2016 at 1:21 pm
In regards to Russia I think they may prefer Mr Trump.
I do not know if they are behind any of the DNC “hacks” but the Dems are pulling out all the stops to blame them.
Mr Putin seems to think that all of the leaks are a good public service, show the American voters what type of human being Hillary Clinton real is. Also I don’t think they like her.
michael

“In regards to Russia I think they may prefer Mr Trump”
I don’t think the Russians prefer Trump. They would rather have Hillary Clinton, who is much less likely to use force. She has already said she would not put U.S. troops in Iraq (last night) to fight the Islamic Terror Army. She didn’t explain what she would do with the U.S. troops already there.
No, Russia wants someone they can push around, like they push Obama around. That person is much more likely to be Hillary than Donald Trump.
Some seem to think Hillary is a war hawk, but that’s really not the case. They cite her pushing the effort to depose Libya’s Kadaffy as a case of her aggression. But if you look at what she actually did, then you see the same “minimalist” approach to warfare as President Obama. Both Hillary and Obama favor attacking the enemy from the air, especially when the enemy has no way to stop U.S. aircraft from flying over them. That way they can appear to be taking it to the enemy without suffering any consequences such as U.S. casualties.
Bombing Kadaffy was all Hillary was willing to do. As soon as Kadaffy was killed, Hillary and Obama wanted nothing more to do with the situation, and allowed Libya to fall into the chaos we see today. Hillary would never have considered using U.S. ground troops in this battle or any battle. She will only do military moves that fit in with the anti-war Left’s ideology which is to do as little as possible (see Iraq and Afghanistan).
The problem with Hillary and Obama take on the subject, is we CANNOT win a war without using U.S. ground troops. Air attacks don’t cut it. Bill Clinton tried air attacks over Kosovo when he was president. He bombed the hell out of the Serbs, which did nothing to shake the Serbs resolve. Clinton refused to send in U.S. ground troops, when it became apparent that bombing was not going to fix the situation, and NATO wanted to send in troops. NATO finally told Clinton they were going in with troops with or without the U.S., and Clinton finally relented and added U.S. troops to the mix.
Clinton’s reluctance caused a most fortunate circumstance. Since Clinton had at first refused to include U.S. ground troops, the NATO allies had gotten together and formed up their own team, including their own commander of the force, a British General (sorry, I don’t recall his name, and I should). This had the effect that when Clinton finally decided to join, the force already had a commander, and Clinton’s general, Wesley Clark, was made second in command rather than the commander.
Within a matter of weeks after NATO ground troops went into Kosovo, the war was over because the Serbs surrendered, and the casualties on both sides were very light. The Serbs would never have surrendered had they not been confronted by an overwhelming NATO ground force. This is something Leftwing appeasers like Obama and Hillary Clinton do not understand. They don’t understand the psychology of war. Psychology is 90 percent of the game. This makes them unsuitable for planning and running the nations national security, as should be obvious from Obama’s last eight years.
During the course of the NATO ground invasion, at one point, NATO troops had Russian troops surrounded in an airport in Kosovo. NATO wanted the Russian troops out, and Clinton’s general, General Wesley Clark recommended to the British commander that the NATO troops attack the Russian troops in order to get them out of the airport. The British general told Clarke he was not prepared to start World War III, right there in Kosovo. Now aren’t you glad General Wesley Clarke was not the one to make that decision? A couple of days later the Russians agreed to withdraw from the airport. General Wesley Clarke is used by the Leftwing media as a expert in military affaris to this very day. Yeah, he’s an expert in really screwing up big time. Good thing he didn’t have a chance to work his will in Kosovo.
The Russians want Hillary.

When the government says ‘economist’, what they mean is ‘propagandist’. They write models with built in conclusions and economic data is so noisy that the slightest bias can often give you whatever result you want.

Hold the presses! This just in:
Billions of Barrels of Oil Discovered in Texas
A U.S. energy company just discovered a “world class” oil and gas resource in west Texas, out on the fringes of the already prolific Permian basin. The WSJ reports on Apache Corp.’s encouraging new find:
“The discovery, which Apache is calling “Alpine High,” is in an area near the Davis Mountains that had been overlooked by geologists and engineers, who believed it would be a poor fit for hydraulic fracturing. It could be worth $8 billion by conservative estimates, or even 10 times more, according to the company. […]
“The company has begun drilling in the area and says the early wells, which produce more natural gas than oil, are capable of providing at least a 30% profit margin at today’s prices, including all costs associated with drilling. Some are so prolific that they can break even at a price of 10 cents per million British thermal units, according to the company. Natural gas futures closed Tuesday at $2.72. […]
“The new play is a short distance from extensive drilling operations and is likely to stoke the speculative fever that has recently engulfed the Permian, a vast swath of geology in West Texas and New Mexico that has been gushing oil and gas for almost 100 years. The Permian has become popular again because producers have found ways to use newer technologies to extract oil from the area at a profit, even at current below-$50-a-barrel prices.”
The oil industry has a long history of big discoveries that haven’t panned out, but there’s already a lot to be excited about with the Alpine High resource. For one, the first wells are already proving profitable, even at today’s bargain hydrocarbon prices. Secondly, the field’s proximity to existing drilling operations will make it easier to source the necessary transportation and services.
Speaking of long histories, this is yet another example of those “peak oil” decriers looking foolish. Gaia’s riches continue to surprise even the more bullish analysts among us, and the shale revolution put an end to the notion that the planet’s energy carrying capacity was somehow tapped out. In reality, large new reserves of oil and gas are being discovered all around the world. We’re living in an era of extraordinary energy abundance, and thanks to a market environment that has accommodated a deep pool of companies interested in exploring and inventing new ways to drill more with less, the United States stands at the center of this renaissance.http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/09/07/billions-of-barrels-of-oil-discovered-in-texas/

The pretension of an ivory tower expert is that he “knows” or can divine things. BS. The oil glut has been a surprise to most experts operating within generally shared parameters.They were flying blind weren’t they. Drill responsibility.
Open our lands. Allow us to honor our
ancestors as we burn the sacred earth fuels sending our prayers to the heavens. Ha. We should sue along those lines.

The economists give economics a bad name. They don’t like oil and gas development, period. The environmental and social costs are nonexistent – just the opposite. The social benefit is the enhanced employment and large paychecks. The environmental benefit is the high-tech engineering and development techniques used in modern oil and gas production. This project is a win-win for all concerned except the far-left zealots who are mindlessly against everything.

There is no doubt that with sane particulate filters and de-sulphurization kit, the USA should continue to burn open-cast coal for a few decades yet.
The fly ash can then be mined for uranium before being turned into insulated ash blocks for house construction.

Caleb says, “Is oil anti-coal?”
There was some attention on natural gas interests being big players in the assault on coal, several years ago.
I am using a touch screen so I won’ t be leaving links. It’s way too hard. Cheers.

OIl is not anti-coal.
Oil is too expensive to burn in power stations and is not a good reducing agent for industrial processes.
Gas however competes directly with coal.
What is the main difference between coal and gas?
Coal produces per unit energy 2-3 times more carbon dioxide.
Coal is about half the price.
If you were gas, wouldn’t it be a good idea to hire Gore, make a film about ‘global warming’, get CO2 declared a pollutant, and this justify taxing coal into uncompetitiveness?

A Trump presidency with a Republican Congress may end the climate madness. Think of all the useful research those $billions of research funds and thousands of scientists could be doing instead of spinning the climate wheel.

The good thing about Trump is that in the end he knows he can’t possibly do any of the things he promises. And will be smart enough to do almost nothing.
The terrifying thing about the Clitorall Hinny is that just possibly, she might.
IN my life, the worst governments are always those that Do Something. A policy of masterful laissez faire until and unless deep crisis looms, is usually best. Let people sort themselves out.

All I need a candidate to promise is that he/she will encourage free markets and competition among energy producers through the easing of regulations and the offering of tax incentives. Oil, coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, wind – let them all compete on an equal playing field to give us the cheapest energy possible. Somehow I don’t see dear Hillary and the Dems allowing that, but if they did, I’d vote for ’em.

..WOW !! Peak Oil doesn’t mean what it use to … LOL…
Apache Corp. is reporting it just found, in the Delaware Basin, a massive 75 TRILLION cubic ft. of Natural Gas and 3 BILLION barrels of oil….Stock jumps 10% in one day…
Only Trump will let us have it !

And the greens seriously undersold the benefits of renewable energy? Of course it is oversold but the question is there a net benefit as clearly we now now renewable energy is a net cost with no benefits at all.

US coal is in decline because of shale gas and renewables…
Trump can’t halt all renewables, because they increasingly make financial sense – people are installing them without regard to subsidy (oh yes they are!)
Especially coal can never regain ground while natural gas price continues low…
Even if you argue with me over renewables, you can’t say coal will get that ground back in power generation from shale gas…
As to oil, the price drives the economics of exploration – if its too low it won’t be economic to start exploiting more arctic reserves (exploration/exploitation even in a warming arctic is difficult).
I can’t see a further increase in oil until a price recovery and if I could forecast that, I’d be planning on spending the millions I’d make in the markets…
Trumps coal plan can’t work…

No one can predict oil prices. Long term plans have to be based on the current strip and inflation assumptions. Basins with the potential for giant discoveries (ANWR,Alaska OCS,etc.) are attractive in almost any price environment.
Shell’s major problems in the Chukchi Sea were regulatory malfeasance, too much ice and too short of a drilling season (summer). Warming would actually facilitate drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
Coal could compete with cheap natural gas in a free market. It would be tough competition, but it would be competition. Coal can’t compete against Mordor-on-the-Potomac and cheap natural gas.
Renewables, apart from wind in a very few places, are irrelevant.

Coal is cheap. $2.18 per million btu for electricity generation. Natural gas currently costs $2.70 per million btu at the wellhead and about $9-10 per million btu for electricity generation.
The only reason that coal-fired power plants have become uneconomic is due to regulatory malfeasance. One of the benefits of the acid rain scam is that it forced coal-fired power plants to pretty well eliminate most potentially harmful emissions. This was accomplished at a relatively modest cost.
The only reason that coal has become noncompetitive is the moronic war against the AGW myth. This had led to a decade of increasingly stringent regulations that have made it almost impossible to build new coal-fired plants and will force the early retirement of many existing plants.

More drilling is limited not by environmentalists only, but by the Middle East, where Obama flooded the market with trillions of barrels of oil to finance terrorism. As long as such international events occur, the US cannot compete. If Trump somehow got a tax on imported oil and managed to shut down the environmental protests, drilling might work. Perhaps Saudi Arabia will bankrupt itself eventually, as some predict. In spite of claims to the contrary, there are no politicians in places of power that want an energy independent US. They love the dependency on foreign oil and will maintain it as long as possible while decrying it. I doubt Trump can overcome the gravy train built over the last four or five decades.

The renewables subsidies and mandates (please don’t use one term without the other) have been a failure in Spain and in any country where they have been imposed.
We need to trust the voters to see the failures of renewables and to recognized a ruined economy when they see one.
There actually is no reason why energy prices can’t come down with fracking and if the coal miners and plants have the prohibitive regulations lifted. This must be done before they get their assets stripped and sold to China.
And it is also time to recognize that after adding these worthless wind turbines and solar panels which reduces and volitilizes supply and price, and after adding electric cars to increase demand, the brown outs and black outs will come.
When the black outs come, then the politicians will all become battery salesman. This is a wreckless unknown expense. No engineer would build a system that does not supply services until a later, unknown infrastructure is added. But that is what subsidies and mandates (force) is accomplishing. An engineer would never practice again if he built a building in that way.
Then the politicians will all become Smart Meter salesmen. This is a method of rationing and controlling all of the appliances within the house remotely.

Smart Meters are the ultimate goal in all of this. This is expected to be a world wide market and the meters have been developed to be able to withstand very high temperatures; I expect that is to keep them from being disabled or removed by unhappy home owners who are having their energy use and appliances switched on and off.

Yep. None of this green schist will work unless Big Brother can reach into our homes with a remote “Off Switch.”

The first thing commuters in the environmentally aware neighborhood of the future do when they get home is plug in their electric cars, and that’s the problem.
“That’s a looming utility nightmare,” says Jim Pauley, Schneider Electric’s new senior vice president for External Affairs and Government Relations. “Utility infrastructure was built for something completely different,” he said, and neighborhood concentrations pulling new EV loads at 6 p.m. on still-hot afternoons could be disastrous for local distribution grids.
That’s one reason he’s hoping to see continued, and expanded, federal incentives to build out infrastructure for electric vehicle (EV) charging. Targeted charging technology would let utilities “talk” to chargers and spread out the demand and underpin the incentives to integrate an array of “smart” technology across the electricity system.
[…]
One driver is realization among both utilities and their regulators that efficiency and demand response are key to meeting growing electricity demand, Pauley said.
Realistically, “we can’t build enough” new generating plants, he said.
The Obama Administration’s ongoing efforts for open interoperability standards for “smart” communications–akin to Internet standards that let entrepreneurs write programs that work across the web–are an important “enabler” for the smart grid, Pauley said. Schneider has been working with its trade associations in that effort, he noted.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has also been important in leveling the playing field for demand response, Pauley said, with FERC insisting that grid operators treat removing load on par with adding generation.
[…]http://breakingenergy.com/2011/07/25/utility-nightmares-of-electric-cars/

The article says that the Smart Grid is a good thing because it will prevent the utility nightmare that could result from widespread use of electric vehicles (EV’s).
Paying up to $1 trillion in higher taxes and/or electric bills for a gov’t-controlled remote control to my circuit breaker box so that the gov’t can switch off some people’s power so a bunch of greenies can charge their EV’s at night should be a bad thing to anyone who pays taxes and/or an electric bill.
Obama’s future-vision will lead to “neighborhood concentrations pulling new EV loads at 6 p.m. on still-hot afternoons” which “could be disastrous for local distribution grids.”
That’s why we supposedly need the Smart Grid, the projected cost which has climbed from $338 to $476 billion since 2004. The odds are that the cost will ultimately be more than $1 trillion.
The Smart Grid will supposedly return $1.2 to $2.0 trillion in benefits… Although those benefits never show up on consumer electricity bills…http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/SmartGrid.png
A 12% hike in my electric bill would be a Helluva lot more than $145/year. And, why on Earth would I want to pay 10% more for electricity, just so the gov’t can shut off my AC or pool pump when they think I’m using too much electricity? The projected benefits to the consumer/taxpayer are all speculative, useless, intangible and/or mythological.Building fires caused by electrical infrastructure
Increase GDP from reduced electricity cost
Environmental Impact: SO2, CO2 and NOx
NOx and SO2 were already well below the national standard and declining before Obama sent the EPA on an Enviromarxist jihad against American industry. SO2 is at, or very near, an irreducible level.
CO2 is only a pollutant in the imaginations of Al Gore and the EPA.
This “benefit” is idiotic…Access to competing suppliers
I already have “access to competing suppliers.”
The article says, “The private sector can and will invest in all this energy-saving… but it will all happen much faster if the federal government provides, or continues, incentives and policies to spur it.” Irrespective of the degree to which the private sector and/or federal gov’t funds it – The cost will be born by the taxpayers and/or the consumers – Who often happen to be the same people.
The purpose of the Smart Grid is 100% driven by the zero-sum steady-state economic philosophy of Enviromarxism, “with FERC insisting that grid operators treat removing load on par with adding generation.”
The sole purpose of the Smart Grid is to give the gov’t the equivalent of a remotely operated main disconnect switch for every privately owned circuit breaker box in the nation… So that they can forcibly or coercively “treat removing load on par with adding generation.”

Doesn’t have to be very smart at all. Who would we be impressing? Today, Zambia has massive “load-shedding” (power outage) for something like 20 hours out of every day, imposed on the general population. I presume that government facilities are exempt, in line with the usual standards of behaviors. No fancy technology required. Everybody knows what is going on, but nobody can do anything about it.

Steve T
September 7, 2016 at 2:47 pm
And SteveT, there is the factor that a certain percentage of voters don’t say they will vote for Trump. Like all sensible people, I’ve been disappointed in Trump’s self immolating statements that have held him back. He seems to be on the rails now though. Even as he was, I saw him as the best bet, not just for USA, but western civilization! I give kudos to UK for Brexit (and honorary mention to Eastern Europe, too) otherwise I would have assumed the Great Political Correction to come was completely Trump’s doing. What’s left of the EU will be saved against its will like the endangered Nile crocodile, who would be snapping at conservation biologists’ A55E5 while the rescue is going on. Trump will win!

They just discovered a multi billion barrel discovery in Texas. They are just beginning to discover previously unprofitable sources. The benefits of being able to tell the Middle East to kiss our Gas is immeasurable.

This is no question than a lot more energy, money and jobs could be had if we could get rid of most of the onerous government regulations that do little to improve the environment but add lots of time, cost and worthless environment protection. All the studies, reports, etc are nothing but a way of discouraging people from getting started. We have reached the sweet point long ago when it came to balancing safety, environment, etc with cost and time to begin the project. Now, all the added regulations only cost more money, delay getting started and make lawyers rich fighting the process in courts.

“Next comes the reform of our tax laws, regulations and energy rules. While Hillary Clinton plans a massive tax increase, I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has declared for the presidential race this year – Democrat or Republican. Middle-income Americans will experience profound relief, and taxes will be greatly simplified for everyone I mean everyone.
America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country. Believe it will happen and it will happen fast. Then we are going to deal with the issue of regulation, one of the greatest job-killers of them all.Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year, and we will end it very, very quickly. We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American energy. This will produce more than 20 trillion dollars in job creating economic activity over the next four decades.”
I think there is every indication that Donald J Trump is quite serious about reviving coal and steel in the US. If you are on the left, he opposed the Iraq war and NAFTA, as well as TTIP.

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